One-shot

Thanks to Melusin for the quick beta. She deserves praise for her patience.

I make no money out of this.

*

Lord Voldemort was skimming through reports about his Death Eaters’ activities. His red eyes showed a deep lack of satisfaction with what he was reading. True, his men had reached their objectives regarding the death toll. It was how said death toll had been reached, he found lacking.

Three by poison, four by Avada Kedavra, and ten by Muggle means: dagger, strangulation or disembowelment by hand. One may wonder why they need a wand!

Something else was bothering the Dark Lord. The last opinion poll in the Daily Prophet indicated that the number of witches and wizards who feared him had been decreasing for the last three months. That would not do at all.

He hissed his order. “Wormtail, go and fetch Severus.”

A rat-faced little man, who was standing in the shadows of the room and as far away as he could manage from Voldemort’s enormous snake, came to stand in front of the despot.

“Yes, Master.” He bowed and hurried to fulfil his master’s whim.

Several minutes later, a tall, pale man, with enough jet-black hair to make Snow White jealous, knelt in front of Voldemort. The latter stopped digging a trench in his Persian rug. He stepped over his snake and approached the other man. He put a long[,] pale white hand on his shoulder. Severus refrained from shuddering.

“Severus, I shall use your talents as a teacher. My Death Eaters need to be reminded of the quality processes when it comes to murder and terror. You shall organise training sessions for everyone no later than next week.”

“Yes, Master.”

Severus cursed inwardly. His timetable was already more than full: Potions to brew, novice Death Eaters to train, information about rich wizards to collect, Hermione to sha – pass information to, etc. And now the Dark Lord was adding to the brew because imbeciles like Yaxley didn’t know how to follow precise instructions. He wondered how Bellatrix would take the news of her being considered as a sub-standard killer when she had the biggest death toll of all; she even beat the Dark Lord in that respect.

Please let Potter find the last Horcrux soon! he begged any deity that might be willing to listen. There must have been one, for the same evening an otter Patronus told him the Order’s attack would happen the next day and that he ought to take cover.

Twenty-four hours later, Severus was standing in front of the remains of Voldemort’s house. An exhausted and dirty but overall happy Hermione was in his arms. What was good about dealing with the Order was that they didn’t know the word “process”. When you fought on their side, you could use a whole range of spells without being scolded because you didn’t use them correctly. As if he had time to turn his wrist three times clock-wise before casting a Protego!

From now on, he would be able to openly love Hermione and lead a quieter life. He certainly hoped to never again hear the words, “process”, “quality control” or “under control” in his life. Well, he would make sure he never would.